State of the Jason

     Hey all, sorry I haven't posted lately. I have been up to a whole lot so I'm breaking it into two separate posts. My Danish class came to an end on Friday the 22nd with a written exam in the afternoon, and was fully completed the following Monday with the oral exam. To reiterate my assessment of Danish from my last post, the Danish language is very hard in many ways, but particularly in understanding spoken language and trying to pronounce pretty much everything. With the written exam including two sections of listening to a recording and answering questions and of course the oral exam requires some pronunciation skill, it was a rather challenging end to a rather intensive course. All in all, though, it was very worth it to take the class; I met so many awesome people right away, learned a good deal about Danish culture from my professor, can now introduce myself and order at a restaurant in Danish even if Danes will switch to English right after, and had a great excuse to come to this beautiful city a month before the semester started!

A lovely class picture with our professor, Mia, in the back right

Some of the squad in post-written exam bliss

     Much to my surprise I actually did pretty well in the class! I managed a 10 out of 12, sort of, for both the written and oral exams. I say sort of because Denmark now uses a seven-point grading scale that isn't just zero to six or one to seven. Instead it's possible to get a failing grade of either a -3 or 00, a just passing grade of a 02, or one of the passing grades 5, 7, 10, or 12. The leading zeros for the 00 and 02 grades are to prevent students from altering them into a 10 or a 12 respectively. Apparently this bizarre system was created to make grade transfers easier, believe it or not. European schools using the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) have, since the establishment of this standard, used a seven-point scale for grading and so Denmark modified their old scale to also have only seven points. The old scale, however, was a 13-point scale, which is why the current system still goes up to 12.

     Our oral exam coincided with yet another 21st birthday in our class (the third in only two weeks!), so that night we had plenty to celebrate. The following day was Australia Day, better known as 'Straya Day, which according to the invite from an Aussie in our class it is a day to "slack off, eat lamingtons, drink tinnies, go to the beach, watch the cricket and celebrate all that is good about Australia. And, while that particular date commemorates the blatant imperialism underpinning the first white settlement in Sydney (the smear on an otherwise lovely day), we'd love for you to dig into some vegemite (NOT marmite) and listen to the biggest musical institution of our calendar - the triple J hottest 100, streamed live from Aus." Needless to say, the dorm was abuzz with cooking, drinking, and the sweet sound of Australian accents. Unfortunately I was able to join in very little because I was attending a volunteer training at Studenterhuset.

     I guess it's not all too unfortunate as I am very excited to get to work at Studenterhuset (The Student House) this semester. It is essentially a student union building for students throughout Copenhagen. It is run exclusively by students who primarily come from my university, KU, but is open to the public and students at any school in the city can become members. Being in the city center, the building is not nearly as large as most American unions would be, but the space is used constantly and for a variety of things. The main floor is a cafe and bar that serves nearly a dozen beers on tap, even more bottled, all the coffee and espresso drinks you know and love, as well as some bakery goods and snack foods. Over the semester the location plays host to scores of music events, trivia night every Monday, swing dancing every Tuesday night, a cheap but delicious meal every Wednesday night, lectures by a variety of academics and professionals, and much more. This Sunday, for example, the place will host Super Bowl events starting at 9:00pm through when the game begins at 12:30am our time.

View of the bar area from the front door

Friday night crowd in front of Studenterhuset's front entrance on the famous shopping street Købmagergade

A (not so great) shot of the interior ambiance; it's always packed, even on a Tuesday night!

     Besides all of the goings on, there are many other student organizations that are under the Studenterhuset umbrella. There's a group called language cafe that meets every couple of weeks for students learning languages to just sit and chat with a native speaker or two; film club both has events for club members and plans film screenings for the public; media group manages all of the PR for Studenterhuset, particularly photography and social media; and then there's the bar group which is who I am volunteering with. Since it is all student run and meant to be inexpensive, nobody gets paid for working there, but there are a lot of benefits. We essentially are paid per hour with food/drink tickets that are good for pretty much any one item off the menu. Since we always work a five hour shift, that really adds up. Also, the tickets can be used on shift, afterwards, or saved for another time or even for a friend to use. After using all of your tickets, you still get an even greater discount than the standard member rate, making an already affordable venue one of the cheapest places to hang out. The people I have met through Studenterhuset already have been really cool, and I look forward to a long semester of meeting new friends and enjoying time back behind a bar once more.